“Maybe he wanted to see if you’d actually turn it over if you did find it?” Esposito says.
“The asshole does love playing games,” Jimmy says. “And not just sex games.”
“Does he own this particular gun?” Jane asks Jimmy. “I know you’ve already checked.”
“If he does own it,” Jimmy says, “he didn’t buy it legally, because I did make a couple of calls on my way out.”
“Means shit,” Esposito says. “You know who can get a gun these days? Everybody. You know where? Anywhere.”
“But let’s say, for the sake of conversation, that it was used on the Carsons that night,” Jane says. “Why keep it instead oftossing it into the ocean, or one of the many other bodies of water available to him?”
Jimmy drinks some of his beer. “Because he’s batshit crazy?” he says.
“Or because he’s just hot-messing around with the two of you all over again,” Danny Esposito says.
“But if it isn’t Jacobson who wanted the gun found,” Jimmy says, “who did?”
Quietly Jane says, “Maybe somebody who wants Rob to look guiltier than he already does. And who knows even he isn’t batshit crazy enough to keep the murder weapon around like a keepsake.”
No one says anything until Jimmy suddenly slaps the table hard with the palm of his hand, making the mugs and Jane’s wineglass jump.
“Fuck!”he yells, causing heads to turn in their direction from the bar.
“What’s wrong?” Jane asks him.
“What’s wrong,” he says, “is that I’m suddenly not nearly as sure as I’d like to be that our guy did it.”
He drains his beer and holds up his empty mug so that Kenny the bartender can see it.
“Sonofabitch,” Jimmy says, lowering his voice now. “Did those words really just come out of my mouth?”
He sees Jane smiling at him, as she reaches over to pat his hand.
“You’re the one who sounds sick,” she says.
FORTY-FIVE
EVEN BEN DOESN’T KNOW this, but I’ve taken to washing my hair only in the bathroom sink, as a way of making sure it’s still not falling out.
I was one of the lucky ones whodidn’tgo bald during chemo, and maybe I’m due for something that passes for good luck across the same hideous journey as any other cancer patient. My sister, Brigid, was not as lucky, which is why she ended up buying various wigs of various lengths as a way of making herself look natural.
I may be done with chemo, but a girl can’t be too sure about something as important as her hair.
Dr. Sam Wylie keeps reassuring me that it’s rare for someone to have a delayed reaction with hair loss.
“How rare?” I asked her earlier today on the phone.
“Extremely.”
“Give me some numbers.”
“There’s no point,” she says. “You know you’ve never been any good at keeping numbers straight in your head, all the way back to high school.”
“I’m more concerned about what’s happening on top of my head, doc,” I tell her, and Sam tells me to trust her, there’s a better chance of me losing my sense of humor than my hair.
But I am testing very high on paranoia these days—any cancer patient who says they don’t is lying—and that is whyI continue to do a wellness check on my hair every time I wash it. Even after I’m done and dried, I pull on it, as if trying to determine whether or not it’s real.
Tonight I wash it again, as a way of distracting myself from the nausea I was feeling after just one glass of red, and not even the whole glass, over at Jimmy’s bar.
